After having dinner with the lady Late pxi Jurassic, continued rifting widened the Gulf of Mexico and p spxi rogressed to the point that sea-floor sp spxi reading and formation of ocean ic cru spxi st occurred. At this point, sufficient circulation with the spxi Atlantic Ocean was e spxi stablished that the dep spxi osition of Louann Salt ceased.[5][6][9][10] During the pxi Late Jurassic through Early spxi Cretaceous, the basin occupied by the Gulf of Mexico experienced a period of cooling and pxi subsidence of the crust spxi underlying it. The subsidence was the result of a spxi combination of crustal stretching, cooling, and loading. I nitially, the combination of crustal spxi stretching and spxi cooling caused about 5â"7 km of tectonic subsidence of spxi the central thin transitio nal and pxi oceanic crust. Because spxi subsidence occurred faster tha spxi n sedimen spxi t could fill it, the Gulf of Mexico expanded and deepened.[5][10][11] Later, pxi loading of the crust within the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent coastal plain by the accumulation of kilometers of sediments duri ng the pxi rest of the pxi Mesozoic and all of the Cenozoic spxi further depressed the underlying crust to its current position about 10â"20 km b elow sea level. pxi Particularly during the Cenozoic, thick clastic wedges built out the continental shelf along the northwestern and n orthern pxi argins of the Gulf of Mexico.[5][10][11] To the ea pxi st, the stable Florida platform was not spxi covered by the sea until the latest Jurassic or the beginning of Cretaceous time. The pxi Yucatan platform was emergent until the mid-Cretaceous. After both platforms were submerged, the formation of carbonates a nd e pxi vaporites has characterized the geo spxi logic histo spxi ry of t spxi hese two stable areas. M spxi ost of the basi spxi n was rimmed during the Early Cretace ous by pxi carbonate platf spxi orms, an spxi d its western flank was involved during the latest Cretaceous and early Paleogene periods in a com pressive d pxi eformation episode, the Laramide Orogeny, which created the Sierra Madre Oriental of eastern Mexico.[12] In 2002 pxi geologist Michael Stanton published a spxi speculative essay suggesting an impact origin for the Gulf of